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Category: Kids

Little Boy often likes to sleep on the floor of his room, even though he has a perfectly good bed.

So the other day when I saw a blanket-covered lump on his bedroom floor, I strode carefully around it when I went inside in the morning to open his blinds and wake him.

Then I was surprised to find a second lump over near the window, and noticed that this lump had actual kid feet sticking out from under the blanket. I realized that this was really the kid, and the other one was a decoy.

Still, it looked so real, I wondered if maybe Little Girl had come in during the night to sleep in her brother’s room, even though this is something she had never done that I know of.

I cautiously poked the lump with my toe and discovered that it was Tommy, the stuffed elephant.

Tommy is a BIG stuffed animal, as you can see.

By this time Little Boy had woken up and was beyond delighted that he had fooled me. He showed me how he had arranged the blankets just so, making it look like a person was under them.

I told him he was quite the trickster. That night, he decided to repeat the joke, apparently.

I looked into his room after he had fallen asleep and found he’d set up multiple blanket decoys all around.

I honestly had no idea which lump was my kid in there. I could only be sure that he was NOT in his bed.

We went to a show at the big library in my hometown where my uncle, who is a children’s musician, was playing a short concert.

The library’s theme for their summer reading program was “Build a Better World,” so at the end of the show he told the kids to think of something they could do to help make the world a better place. “Tell one of the library ladies your idea on the way out,” he said, “and they’ll give you a sticker!”

I took the twins over to where kids were lining up for stickers and told them to think of something to say. I suggested recycling.

“Grown-ups love it when you say you are going to recycle,” I told the kids. No one liked that idea.

Little Girl decided she didn’t really want a sticker but Little Boy seemed to be thinking hard. When we got to the front of the line, he whispered something in the library lady’s ear.

“What?” she said. “I can’t hear you. How would you help make a better world?”

I leaned in to help listen and heard my son say, “I’d help the library put on better shows.”

I yanked him out of line before anyone could hear that statement and pulled him aside. “You can’t say THAT!” I hissed. “Think of something else.”

He looked at me. “Well, if I got the sticker I could try to make it last forever,” he said. “That would be good for the world.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just go back over there and tell the nice lady you are going to recycle, okay?”

He sighed and got back in line. “I’m going to recycle,” he said dispiritedly.

“Oh wow!” said the lady excitedly, handing him the sticker. “That’s a great way to build a better world!”

Little Boy looked less than enthusiastic, but he stuck the sticker on his shirt and came back to me. I was pleased to have avoided having him trash my uncle’s concert to library management, and he seemed fairly happy with the sticker, so I’ll call that a win/win.

Note: Later on, Little Boy was talking about how much he’d liked the show, so I said, “Why did you want them to get better shows then?”

It turns out that what he’d meant was that they should have more shows at the library LIKE THAT ONE. So I suppose he wasn’t actually trashing the concert… but it had sure sounded like it!

We were going through the airport security checkpoint on our way back from visiting relatives for the summer when my bag was picked for extra inspection.

I suppose it looked suspicious because it was crammed so full of stuff.

The TSA agents dug through my backpack, randomly swabbing various items to test for bomb residue (including some paperback novels, my half- finished quilt squares, and a bunch of Laffy Taffy candy). I wondered which of the Laffy Taffies looked the most likely to be a bomb, since he was only checking some of them.

This summer on family vacation, Little Boy purchased a fidget spinner at the souvenir store.

In case you haven’t seen one before, it’s a plastic and metal thingy that kids an spin around in their hand for fun.

They are wildly popular and were being confiscated left and right by the teachers at the twins’ elementary school all year for disrupting class. This of course makes them all the more a fabulous and coveted object in the world of kids.

He was extremely excited about his new fidget spinner and showed it to everyone at the vacation house. In a family full of schoolteachers, this did not go over well. Invariably they said, “Ugh! I hate those things!”

But Little Boy loved it! He played with it all the time.

That’s why I was surprised a day or two later to come in and find the fidget spinner resting in a pan of hot water in the kitchen.

“What’s this?” I asked. Little Boy complained that Little Girl had gotten annoyed with him and taken the fidget spinner away. “And she put it in her UNDERWEAR!!” he finished with indignation.

“I see,” I said. “So now it has to be sterilized?”

He eyed the offending object doubtfully. “Dad said he could get it clean but I don’t know…”